


I Love You (Is All That You Can't Say)

by theSeventhStranger



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fix-It, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Post TAB, Post-Episode: The Abominable Bride, Post-Tarmac Scene, Retrospective, Some Key Events Through Sherlock's POV, Spoilers TAB, Spoilers for Nearly Every Episode, Tarmac Scene Revisited, The Tarmac Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5765959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theSeventhStranger/pseuds/theSeventhStranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then John turns toward him again.</p><p>“Sherlock. On the tarmac. I got the feeling that you were going to, um. To say something else.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You (Is All That You Can't Say)

It wasn’t so much the silence that got to him after John had left; no, that he was used to. Silence in his childhood room, silence in his single dorm room at boarding school and later, at uni. 

Silence in his first flat, well, at least if one didn’t count the rasping sound that could be heard from inside the walls at night. Rats. He’d tried hard to not think about it. Played his violin to drown it out; drown it out along with the restless feeling inside, the one that would tug at him and make it so difficult to sleep. All in all, years and years of silence. 

A gray and ordinary Tuesday, the phone call from Mrs Hudson. The second floor flat in her town house had become available; he’d taken one quick look and felt intensely that this was where he was supposed to be. Mrs Hudson had already squeezed the rent down to almost embarrassingly low numbers, he’d accepted it gratefully and concealed the fact that he still couldn’t quite afford it. 

Then, John. Initially, not much use with the rent situation, of course. Sherlock had known that but there had been something about this small army doctor that had struck a cord so deep down inside that Sherlock hadn’t even been aware it had existed. 

Sometimes, he’d close his eyes and back track the path in his memory, all the way back, standing in the lab at Bart’s, looking up and seeing John for the very first time. When he did, he would always feel a strange sense of wonder about the fact that he was able to pin point the exact moment in which his life had changed. 

* * *

It wasn’t so much the silence, no. It was the emptiness. It was the lingering memories, the shadows, the ghosts of the way life had been when John had been in it. The kettle boiling, a spoon clinking against the inside of porcelain. John’s footsteps in the stair; Sherlock had always been able to tell from the way John walked up the stairs how his day at work had been. 

John, sitting in a kitchen chair, cursing over rude comments on his blog or over some new experiment in the fridge that Sherlock had forgotten to warn him about. John’s laugh; the laugh that always made Sherlock’s heart lit up, sparkle for a while, internal little fire flies on a dark summer night.

The emptiness in the spot where John’s chair had been. Sherlock had pushed and dragged it up to John’s old room, covered it with a white sheet; out of sight, out of mind (but not bloody likely, couldn’t delete it but couldn’t get rid of it, either, so, there it was). 

John, who had left Baker Street when Sherlock was away. John, who was living with Mary in one of those white new ugly boring houses, with ugly boring neighbors. With furniture that still had that unpleasant odor of new; of chemicals to prevent them from being stained by the obligatory glass of red wine on Friday nights by the telly, and more chemicals to prevent them from suddenly bursting into flames. When did furniture ever spontaneously combust? Neither John nor Mary smoked, and Sherlock felt fairly certain they wouldn’t, say, leave a burning candle in the sofa, so-

Dull. Dull dull dull.

* * *

But then. Suddenly a fluster of activity. And Sherlock hadn’t been on top of things, no, far from it. Mycroft had tried to tell him to stay out of it, had tried to warn him while simultaneously avoiding to give Sherlock so much information that he would be forced to lie to John. 

Had not taken the hints. 

Standing in Magnussen’s office, Mary pointing her gun at him.

_‘Oh Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you.’_

* * *

The hospital. Confronting Mary, and John, trembling with anger. And Sherlock had thought that it was towards Mary but had later wondered if it was just as much towards him.

* * *

John had returned to Baker Street, just as Sherlock had known he would. Had placed his chair back where it was supposed to be. But nothing else had been. He hadn’t counted on John being so very angry, and found himself completely lost as for how to fix it.

When Sherlock finally had been released from the hospital, Baker Street wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t how it once had been. John would hardly speak. He’d go to work, come home, usually with take-out enough for them both, and then spend the evening in silence, with his laptop and headphones.

One of those nights, when the rift between them had felt like it was tearing him apart, Sherlock had decided to try.

“John, I-“ he’d begun, and John had looked up from his newspaper, with that gaze that had been so empty, ever since it all happened. It had made Sherlock’s uneasiness worse, making his words falter.

What did people say to other people in situations like this? Granted, this was probably a highly unusual situation, but still. Sherlock tried to recall what others had sometimes said to him in efforts to cheer him up.

”I’m sure it will all be alright,” he'd said stiffly, cringing at the hollowness. ”You and Mary will, er, work it out, and everything will be alright.”

His words had been floating in empty space for a long moment before John had replied.

“Sherlock, just, let's not,” he had sighed heavily, and Sherlock had noticed the signs of John starting to get all worked up again.

”I mean, thank you, but it is what it bloody is. Very soon, I will have to go back there, share a bed with an assassin nobody knows the real name of. Oh, and let’s not forget, who’s also having my child. So it’s pretty damn far from alright, the way I see it!”

 _It’s my fault_ , Sherlock had thought, for the hundredth-something time. _It is all my fault, I’ve let John down, he relied on me, thought I was so clever, how could I miss this, how could I be so blind, so stupid-_

And once again, he had felt like it was hard to breathe and like he was falling-

* * *

Christmas Day. He’d planned it meticulously, gone through every possible scenario. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong.

With every shred of incriminating evidence against Mary gone, surely they would be able to go on. Put the past behind them. Be able to live that ordinary, orderly life that John seemed to crave so bad. Of course he did. After all, who would want to spend the majority of their time in Sherlock’s messed up mess, in his pathetic excuse for a life? 

No one, that’s who.

* * *

_That wife!_

* * *

It was his fault, because he hadn’t seen it coming. He really had been clueless about Mary. Had failed John, and in the process, made it painfully clear that he wasn’t all that John had thought him to be. 

He remembered it so clearly, it stood out brighter in his mind than anything else, the way John had used to look at him. In his eyes, there had been admiration, and acceptance, and a smiling warmth.

And although Sherlock couldn’t be sure, he thought that there might be a word that might accurately describe what he had seen in John’s eyes, when John looked at him. Yes, he was almost certain that in John’s eyes, there had been-

There had been love.

No one had ever looked at him like that before. But in John’s eyes, he had seen love, and he had felt it shining towards him, bright and clear. But after the confrontation of Mary, it had been gone. 

Somehow being loved and then see it vanish, was much harder than to never have experienced it at all.

* * *

Sometimes anger would surface amongst the anxious despair he was carrying around wherever he went. Anger, because it just wasn’t fair! He’d tried so hard! Tried so so hard to repair the damage he’d caused John by not figuring Mary out sooner. 

Had downplayed the injury, tried to make John believe that she never meant to kill him. Had done everything he could possibly think of, to give John back the wife he so desperately wanted to have.

It hadn’t worked. Apparently he had let John down beyond repair.

But he could still fulfill his unspoken promise to John, the promise to free Mary so that John could be free with her, too. 

At Magnussen, on Christmas Day. The chilling realization that there were no files, no documents to be extracted and destroyed. All the scenarios he’d been rehearsing, and yet managing to neglect that particular possibility. _Stupid. So, so stupid._

* * *

He’d killed him. It was the only option left. Had been an easy decision. For John. He owed it to John. For failing to see Mary for who she truly was. For falling from the rooftop and disappearing for two long years. For inviting John to share the flat in the first place.

One shot. His last vow, followed through.

* * *

On the tarmac. _These are prepared words-_

Prepared and rehearsed in the prison cell where he’d spent one week of isolation. 

Seven days, eight hours and fifteen minutes, to be exact. The torture in Serbia had been easy compared to seven days and eight hours and fifteen minutes locked up with no one and nothing to save him from his spiraling desperation.

He’d practiced them at night. Practiced saying the words that his lips had never formed before; not to John, not to anyone. Whispered them out into the empty darkness of the cell. 

_John, there’s something I should say, I’ve meant to say, always-_

The ride out to the airport, armed security agent by his side. Numbness had claimed him, he was calm, felt nothing. He was leaving, no way out, nothing to fight. It was the way it had to be, the price he had willingly accepted for keeping John safe and happy.

He was fully aware that this time, he wouldn’t be coming back. No need to concern John with that information, he and Mycroft had both agreed. But one thing Sherlock knew he couldn’t do, and that was to part without ever having said it.

Feeling love and feeling loved; it had transformed him. He’d never known the power of it, if it hadn’t been for John. And wasn’t that the ultimate irony? The thing that had led up to this situation, was also what made it unbearable now.

He’d never been afraid of dying. He had a quite rational view of it all, and frankly, he was surprised he’d made it this far. When you’re gone, you’re gone and that’s all there’s to it. It was not the dying business, no. It was parting from John that made it hard to breathe when he thought about it.

_He would not leave without saying it._

* * *

But the numbness held him in an iron grip, and everything happened so fast, too fast, and then John was standing in front of him, Captain Watson with the straight back and forced composure. And Sherlock was overcome with a very odd sense of detachment. It was like he was separated from his body, observing himself, and maybe it was the drugs beginning to kick in sooner than he’d calculated. 

Or maybe it was just the absolute overload of the situation and the realities of it all.

And he was standing on the tarmac, watching from outside, hearing himself make a bad joke about his name.

* * *

He was sitting on the plane, not even bothering to fight the tears any longer, watching John Watson turn into a small dot on the ground below.

As he’d done so many times before, he opened John’s blog, read and read again the words that he already knew by heart. Reading what John had written about him, that very first time, made it come alive again. It made him remember exactly how it had felt, when John had looked at him, blue eyes radiating admiration, acceptance, warmth. Love.

He felt his eyes go heavy.

* * *

_Which is it this time - morphine or cocaine?_

* * *

_Answer me, damn it!_

* * *

Time and space seemed like highly relative concepts for the first few minutes after the jet had touched ground. Mind palace John, real life John, mind palace Mycroft, real life Mycroft - free floating, merging and separating.

After a while he managed to keep his eyes open, and was met by the sight of real life John, watching him with concern and confusion.

“Miss me?”

The joke, the smile, so well rehearsed by now, some forty years later, that it was almost impossible to shake. Keep pretending it’s all fine. Hide those pathetic feelings of loneliness and fear and longing and sorrow.

_Nothing to see here, good people, please disperse-_

* * *

And the game was ON! And it was better than drugs to keep him distracted, to hold this damaged ship afloat for yet a while.

* * *

But now. An enforced stillness, a pause he was not prepared for. The car ride will take at least fifty minutes, and it’s decided that John is going to go with Sherlock, and Mycroft will go with Mary, and Sherlock is not sure John understands why. He’ll have to brief him soon enough, but not now. Not now.

In the backseat, only John and him, a thick bullet proof shield between them and the driver. It seems surreal, sitting there with John less than an hour after saying what he’d thought was their last good bye.

At times he thinks he’s still not awake, that it’s yet another drug induced hallucination, but then John looks at him and there’s sadness and happiness in his eyes and Sherlock cannot make sense of that.

When John speaks, a shiver runs through Sherlock’s body. _Not tripping, then._ They are in the car, together, and Sherlock is not on his way to a certain death in Eastern Europe, and if miracles do, in fact and against all logic, happen, then this must surely be one.

* * *

“I did, you know.” John’s gaze is fixed on him, burning into him so strongly that Sherlock can’t manage to meet his eyes. He settles for John’s right knee instead, keeps his eyes fixed on the fabric of his trousers, when he replies.

“Did what?”

“Miss you. I, um-" John pauses for a moment but is still turned towards him. 

“Ever since you died - I mean, disappeared - there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t missed you. Sherlock, when your plane took off today, I almost couldn’t-"

Sherlock’s heart is beating so hard, so fast, and he’s silent, his complete attention focused as John keeps talking. 

“All I could think was that I had made the worst mistake of my life, not coming with you or finding a way to make you stay. Christ, Sherlock, if anything had happened to you, if you had not come back from there-“

Before Sherlock can stop himself, he interrupts, regretting his words as soon as they are spoken. 

“I wasn’t coming back. That was the whole point. Mycroft said the mission would mean my guaranteed death within six months.”

“Oh God.” John puts a tight fist to his mouth, exhales slowly into it. “Oh dear God.”

John lets his hand fall back down on the black leather seat. Sherlock moves his gaze to it. John’s hand is such a short distance from his own. He has an impulse to touch it. He doesn’t.

* * *

A long stretch of silence follows. They’re out of the city now, on a country road, fields and trees swishing by as the car moves along. They’re getting closer to the location from which the broadcast was made. But all Sherlock can think about, is that John has missed him. He said that he had missed him. 

Sherlock keeps looking at John’s hand. Smaller than his own. But stronger. Not a tremble. Because John thrives on danger, just like he does. 

* * *

Then John turns towards him again.

“Sherlock. On the tarmac. I got the feeling that you were going to, um. To say something else.”

Sherlock’s mind blanks for a moment, immediately followed by the usual urge to deflect, to make a joke, to laugh it off. Hide the emotions, the weakness; the dull, ordinary core he’s tried hard to bury so deep that it could never be exposed.

But this time, he refrains. 

“Yes,” he replies, the word mumbled, eyes averted. He is aware of his heart, beating like crazy, reverberating against his ribs. “I meant to, yes.”

He notices John’s respiration change, quicken. He’s nervous, too, but he’s a soldier, after all. He’s braver than Sherlock, braver with words and emotions.

John speaks again.

“Alright, yeah. So, um. The thing that you were going to say. Am I right in thinking that it was… what I think it was?”

The tension in the car is so palpable that it could be cut with a knife. But suddenly Sherlock finds himself thinking - maybe it’s just nerves and all that’s happened and coming down from the drugs - but, yes, he’s thinking, _To hell with it all._ Just bring it on. Jump.

He gathers all the courage he can find and looks up to meet John’s eyes. It feels oddly liberating. He feels - good. Really good. He has been saved from his suicide mission, and here he is, for once being absolutely honest and vulnerable, and so far, he is surviving that, too. He looks straight back into John’s eyes when he replies.

“You’re always right, John.”

He sees John processing the implication of his reply, lots of different reactions manifesting ever so briefly in his facial expressions, and then, John turns his head away but not before Sherlock can notice a shadow of a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.

John turns back, shoots him a quick glance, then averts his eyes again but he’s definitely smiling now, and Sherlock tries to look at John but he can’t.

And then John is grinning big, looking out of the window on his side of the car, and Sherlock is turned towards the window on his own side, and he has his gaze fixed on the still sleeping fields outside and his mind is not racing, and isn’t that odd.

His heart is beating fast, but he is overtaken by a very strange sense of calm; calm but not numb, no. Quite the opposite.

And when he feels John’s hand, first brushing over his, then more confidently resting on top of it- 

-when he feels John’s fingers entwine with his, locking them together, something new is beginning to gain force in his chest; warm sunshine spreading through his veins, and Sherlock knows that he is smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Inspiration for title and mood: 'Baby Can I Hold You', by Tracy Chapman


End file.
